Rex Vinyl's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The burned record still sat on Rex Vinyl's bench a week later. His machine played perfect sound, but its beam could torch the grooves in a second. He needed a stronger, more precise laser crystal to fix that. Cheap crystals scattered light. He wanted one that held the beam tight and safe. After days of dead ends, one name kept coming up. A collector who dealt rare optics. Rex packed a crate of his best pressings and drove out to trade. The storage room smelled of dust and old cardboard. Records stood in stacked crates, each one labeled by hand. Turntable parts lay scattered on the shelves. A man crouched over a cracked deck, gluing a tonearm with steady hands. He wore a fox costume, tail draped over his stool, ears bent from the doorframe. "You're the laser man," the fox said. He didn't look up. "Word travels. You want my crystal." Rex set his crate down. "I heard you have one that cuts clean. Focused. I'll pay." The fox rose and lifted a small case from a shelf. Inside sat a crystal the size of a thumb, clear as ice. Rex's chest tightened. That was it. The thing that could make his machine safe. "It's not for sale," the fox said. "But I'll trade." He nodded at Rex's crate. "Not for records. I have plenty." He tapped the sleek laser deck Rex had carried in for reference. "I want that. Your machine. Built and working, keyed to my name. Then the crystal's yours." Rex went still. His machine was his only proof the whole idea worked. Give it away, and he'd have parts and a promise. Keep it, and the beam stayed a torch. He looked at the crystal, then at the deck he'd spent six months building. "You want the only one I have," Rex said. "I want the first one." The fox smiled inside the mask. "You'll build more. That's your dream, isn't it? Records everywhere again. I'm just first in line." Rex thought about the burned vinyl on his bench. About selling a machine no one could trust. Without the crystal, there was nothing to sell at all. He picked up the deck. It felt heavier than it should. "Deal," he said. He set the machine on the workbench. The fox scratched a name into the base plate with a fine tool. Then he pressed the crystal case into Rex's hands. Rex drove home with the crystal and no machine. The next one he built would be safe. It had to be. He'd traded away his only working proof to get there. But when he opened the case at his bench that night, he saw the flaw. A hairline crack ran through the crystal's core. Focused light through that crack wouldn't stay tight. It would split. And a split beam was worse than none.